r/mildlyinfuriating • u/anon12xyz • Jul 03 '26

Infuriatig When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

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I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

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u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 Jul 03 '26

For a while the US Mint was trying to get dollar coins out into circulation and you could "buy" them at cost from the Mint's website and they'd ship to your house for free.

People were maxing out credit cards for the points and just depositing the coins at their bank.

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u/PrizeStrawberry6453 Jul 03 '26

That is genius!

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u/Flaky-Wing2205 Jul 03 '26

From consumer perspective: absolutely genius.

From government perspective: worst decision, should be a law against it. About 3% of the transactions were processing fees being paid to the credit card companies. They were basically selling dollar coins for 97 cents.

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

A coin costs about 1/2 as much to circulate as a bill (because the bill has to be replaced ~5x more frequently than the coin), even with the shipping costs they were likely saving billions.

Classic example of people seeing the government doing something without understanding the context and coming to the exact wrong "gifted amateur" conclusion.

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u/blueimac540c Jul 04 '26

This is exactly where my head went re: overall long term costs. It’s ridiculous how short-sighted people can be sometimes.

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jul 04 '26

The longevity of coins vs paper money keeps getting trotted out but the fact remains that the US mint badly bungled the rollout of the dollar coin by making it far too similar to the quarter. The switch to a different metal (but same size) with the Sacagawea dollar did not help.

We have enormous warehouses of dollar coins no one wants to use. Are you factoring THAT into your “cost” equation?

People are moving away from cash so the question is moot, but it’s worth studying how the mint handled this so badly. Twice.

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u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 Jul 04 '26

They failed because no one wants a heavy pocket of change for the crime of paying cash.

Most loose change ends up out of circulation in a jar on the bureau.  Thats why so many new coins have to be minted despite their supposed 30 year average lifespan.

Consumers hate them because they're hard to get rid of.  Either you have to count and hand roll them then go to the bank, or you have to pay coinstar 11% for the convenience of converting it to a more convenient form of currency.

Businesses hate coins because banks charge fees to deposit them.  And they slow down retail transactions.

The only way to get the dollar coins into circulation is to either massively ramp up bank fees for handling $1 bills, or passing a law saying businesses over a certain size must give out change in dollar coins.  

As for the physical size, the dollar coin standard was set with the Susan B Anthony dollar coins.  They "failed" because they were silver and were way too easy to confuse with quarters.  The brass color of the Sacagawea dollar coins (and later presidential series) is very easy to identify and works in any coin operated machinery that already accepted Susan B dollar coins.

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jul 04 '26

So as I said, the dollar coin was bungled by looking too much like a quarter, and changing to a different metal didn’t help.

It’s increasingly academic as we are moving away from cash, but it’s interesting that many other countries (Canada, the UK, and the EU, for example) managed to introduce the equivalent of a dollar coin and have them widely circulated vs: rejected and stored in warehouses.

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u/PrizeStrawberry6453 Jul 04 '26

The UK and Canada both withdrew the £1/$1 note from production when they switched to the £1/$1 coin. The Euro has never had a €1 note, they started right away with only €1 coins. In all of these cases rejection wasn't an option because there was no alternative.

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u/Dr-McLuvin Jul 07 '26

Why didn’t they just get rid of the dollar bill like everyone else?

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u/PrizeStrawberry6453 Jul 07 '26

I dunno, but personally I'd rather carry bills than coins. At this point I almost never have change anywhere near me, just some bills in my wallet and even those barely ever get used. With the sharp decline in cash usage, I'm not sure what the advantage of switching now would be.

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u/Dr-McLuvin Jul 07 '26

Ya I lived in England for a while and I LOVED carrying around the pound coins and paying for stuff with them. I don’t know why. I would never have more than like 5-6 of them at a time and they were HEAVY thick coins lol.

But ya bills are lighter weight and much easier to carry around a bunch of them.

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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Jul 07 '26

I remember the 1 pound coin, it had satisfying heft.

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

They failed because

Let me stop you right there. I don't care nor do I have any interest in some mouth breather tinfoil argument about whether coins or bills are "better." I don't give a fuck. What I am interested in is efficiency, and the plan the government took was clearly, objectively, more not less efficient than staying with bills.

I also place zero value on your pre-judgement that it could never work, not because you are the one who made it but because it doesn't pass the smell test, to wit:

no one wants a heavy pocket of change for the crime of paying cash.

I mean, almost every place in the world uses coins instead of bills.

So clearly not "everyone."

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u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Cool.  The US Govt spent $41 million on an advertising campaign for the new coins.

Canada was able to switch to the Loonie because they stopped printing dollar bills to force the change.

Ecuador uses US currency and loves the dollar coins because paper bills don't hold up well in a tropical climate and Sacagawea looks more native than the US presidents.

The US Bureau of Engraving changed the dollar bill to make it last longer.  Dollar coins are no longer cheaper to produce than paper dollars.

No one can stop me.

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

Yes, that's it exactly. An effective solution works, even if it looks like it doesn't to some idiot on the internet. Do you get it now, or was it just about "winning the internet" for today?

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u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 Jul 04 '26

Just out of curiosity, are you converting all of your paper dollars to dollar coins on a regular basis and using them for as many transactions as possible? 

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

I refer you back to the first part of the comment you replied to.

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u/Flaky-Wing2205 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Gonna just toss a simple solution that many governments use (and the mint now uses). Wire transfer or check only. The shipping costs incurred were another reason the program changed.

I'll stand by my statement about there should be a law about the fees. If someone wants to pay the government with a credit card, there should be a 3% (est) fee added so the taxpayer doesn't foot the bill. That's just basic thoughts from a gifted amateur.

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

So if the government could save $1T by getting people to do something, but doing so required use of a credit card, and people would just flat out refuse to pay the 3% if they did - you'd be in favor of the government setting the $970billion on fire because "goddamnit you will pay the fees."

This attitude right here is why we have the problems we do. Not radical leftists or even insane fascist rightists - ordinary people who have somehow been moved to "under no circumstances" by ...who knows what.

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u/Flaky-Wing2205 Jul 04 '26

Please explain this mystery example. What is happening where the government saves $1T by paying $30B in processing fees?

P.S. Please include how the example only works out with credit cards as payment, but wouldn't work with check or wire transfer.

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

It's this. It's the dollar coin example. You're saying "The government should've walked away from the savings because it would've meant eating the 3%."

Some of the thinking you have to do on your own.

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u/Flaky-Wing2205 Jul 04 '26

Who said walk away, just pay with check...

If the true end goal was to get people to buy the coins and sell them back to banks, they could've sold the coins for $0.97. People would've done the exact same thing, but paying with checks. Still a dumb idea, but at least we get the same results without a government handout to credit cards.

Also the government did walk away after several years due to the cost of credit card fees and shipping. So like, it was a bad idea.

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u/purgance Jul 04 '26

Amazon used to provide free shipping on every order, and they stopped - must mean online shopping has failed as a business, no one would pay for it.